Facebook as a Brand Builder not an Ad Network

Facebook is obviously widely popular these days. Everyone wants to advertise their brand or product on Facebook. We are here to say...don't just advertise...brand yourselves in your own way. Simpler put, you have only ample characters and a small pic to truly impress millions of users each day when you only place an ad. Do you think that will be effective enough to stimulate movement? Not really. eMarketer released excellent stats on Facebook usage last month. 

Each day during the month, Facebook users averaged over 3 billion minutes on the site. They updated their status 15 million times and became “fans” of a particular company, brand, product or person 3.5 million times daily.

In addition, Compete found that that US residents spent more time on Facebook than any other Website, beating out previous leader Yahoo!. However, Nielsen Online still ranks the site third behind AOL and Yahoo!.

But Facebook’s rapid user growth has not translated into advertising revenues.

The habits of social network users are one obstacle. In 2008,IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads, a dramatic difference from the 80% of other Internet users who did so at least once a year. Further, 23% of nonusers who clicked on an ad then made a purchase; only 11% of social network users who clicked on ads did the same.

When marketing professionals were surveyed by TNS Media Intelligence on what objectives had the most social media potential, most said brand-building initiatives such as gaining consumer insights, building brand awareness and increasing customer loyalty.

None said increasing intent to purchase.

So, that said from eMarketer. Build your brand through the applications that Facebook provides. Don't just think about ads...it's much more fun to create a whole page dedicated to your brand.